The owners of the the real SL 8 rifles may be interested in the latest conversion kit by TommyBuilt Tactical company which allows to transform the rifle into the legendary XM8 carbine, which was not introduced into service.
The XM8 was an experimental modular assault rifle that was submitted to the competition for a new US ARMY assault weapon system. The weapon was to replace the Colt M16 and M4 rifles.
The XM8 was to evolve into a whole small arms system, which was to include a baseline carbine (with an mount for the experimental XM320 grenade launcher), a sniper rifle, a support rifle and a compact-carbine with a folding stock.
Despite promising results, the XM8 program was suspended in April 2005 and then officially canceled in October that year.
The TommyBuilt Tactical conversion kit consists of an adjustable stock with five length settings - as in the original XM8, an upper mounting rail with space for optics (the originally sight mounted on the in XM8, the ISM-V, is no longer manufactured and is practically unavailable), two carrying sling swivels and a handguard of the same length as in the G36K.
The conversion kits are made of fiberglass reinforced nylon and are available in limited quantities due to the low availability and discontinuation of SL8 rifle production.
To build a complete XM8, you also need parts and components from a G36 carbine (apart of the SL8 base): the front of the bolt carrier, the magazine well, the enlarged bolt carrier latch, the magazine release and the flash hider. The company also offers a whole carbine assembly service, estimating the cost of labor alone at around 600 USD. The cost of the conversion kit is 1,399.95 USD.
In the meantime, let's look at the original:
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Sources: soldiersystems.net, tommybuilttactical.com, hkparts.net, wikipedia.org, military.wikia.org, businessinsider.com,
